Hello!
I want to make another series. I still have my exchange student post series but i don’t really know what to post. So if you have questions about my high school exchange student life just ask me directly. You give me an idea as well, about what topic should i talk about.
But now, since i’m currently adapting in South Korea, i want to share you some basic life necessities that i find as time goes on. I’m planning to write this series just based on my experience. So you might have a different experience here in Korea, but you can always learn from others as well.
One time my teacher asked me, “Who helped you the most while you’re in Korea.”
I’m surprised that no one pops up right away as an answer.
I would answer God, but i don’t think that’s what my teacher was looking for as an answer. She asked particularly who helped me during adapting in Korea. A lot of people have helped me, but who helped me the most. I thought about my parents, but they didn’t actually helped me in person while i’m adapting here. Some other people only helped me on certain things. Such as the foreign student guidance in my school, she helped me a lot. But only things that are related to school. There are nobody who actually helped me in everything. I helped myself to get help from other people. If that make sense.
What i meant is you need to find someone who are in charge of it and get help from them. You need help about studying ask your teacher, you need help about school ask the guidance, you need help to find a place ask people or read maps. That’s how you don’t depend on other people too much.
This is a personal opinion. I love helping other people but I hate asking help from people because i feel like such a burden. Even though that person is fine helping me, but i hate the feeling of burdening them. Once or twice is fine, thrice is cutting close but more than that i feel really bad.
Back to the topic…
One thing that makes adapting a whole lot easier in Korea is, understanding the language. But don’t get discouraged yet if you can’t. I didn’t say it’s impossible without understanding the language, i just said language make things easier.
Especially if you just go here for vacation, you’ll survive even if you don’t know what annyeonghaseyo means.
But if you want to stay here longer, what you MUST do is knowing how to read hangul. Which is the korean alphabet. If you search it on google, everyone says it’s easy. It’s tricky, but easy if you try. Chinese or Japanese are waaaay far more complicated, but korean hangul you can learn it in less than a day.
You MUST learn hangul in order to survive. You don’t have to understand it right away and that’s fine. You’ll learn while you’re here. It will be helpful to read signs, names of food, streets, bus, subway, etc. But most importantly, you’ll know how to translate in Naver Dictionary which works better than google translate if you need to translate korean. Just type the hangul and the translation will come up.
Next, is the learning part.
If you want to know my korean skill before coming to korea is the same as TOPIK level 2. So i knew the basic of small conversation but i couldn’t make long sentences.
I’m currently studying in a korean language course, so yes that helped me improved a lot. But it’s not the only factor to learn korean. Especially the speaking part. I’m still bad on that. I know a lot more grammars but if i can’t use it in daily life it’s wasted.
I think it’s more effective to learn along the way than just learning it on class. You need to use the language so that it will latch on your subconscious mind.
This is a small example.
I walked through a cafe shop and saw the word 빨대 on a cup full of straws. So i figured paldae means straws. This kind of vocabulary probably won’t pop up much on your list of vocabulary to learn. On korean language books you’ll learn important vocabularies, like 공부하다 (to study) or 우체국 (post office). But straws… it might…… be there somewhere but it won’t be on the top of your head. Right?
So was I. I didn’t know what straws in korean, but i just found out along the way. Right after that i went to seven eleven to buy a cup of americano because i am all for cheap coffee, and i needed a straw. So i just used the word right away to the cashier and he gives me a straw.
What an accomplishment huh?
At least that’s what works for me. It applies to everything, vocabularies, grammars, even actions. Things i picked up along the way latch on me better than the one i studied at school. Observe your surrounding, that’s important.
This might be the very basic tips. If it’s still hard for you to talk to a tteokppoki ahjumma, bank staff, local bread shops, etc don’t stress to much if they ran away from you afraid of talking to a foreigner. Maybe you can use your Naver dictionary or just google stuff. Figure things out, make mistakes. You’ll be fine. Just go to your destination and don’t worry to much, you’ll be surprised of how much things eventually worked out on their own.
Here you go! My everyday korean series part 1. I’ll post more in the future! I have some stuff in mind already. If you want to ask questions just comment below or personal questions you can go to the About page on the top! I can help you!
Teh Manis Dua 